All Apple iPhone users do it.
You’ve got loads of apps open, so you swipe up on the screen and flick those apps into the abyss to save some battery.
But does it really work, or is it a myth?
READ MORE! Apple’s fix for the overheating iPhone 15 also fixed another major problem with the device
According to Apple, that’s not how it works with the iPhone.
Despite being able to quickly jump back and forth between apps when you keep them ‘open’, the apps running in the background aren’t as active as you think.
“When your recently used apps appear, the apps aren’t open, but they’re in standby mode to help you navigate and multitask,” Apple explained on its discussion forum.
Some apps will run ‘for a short period of time’ when you come out of them.
However, as soon as they fall into that suspended state, they aren’t ‘actively in use, open or taking up system resources’.
In other words, they’re not actually draining the battery, so closing them won’t keep your iPhone alive for longer.
Apparently, force-closing apps can be detrimental, or at least that’s what Apple says anyway.
“You should force an app to close only if it’s unresponsive,” Apple claims.
Apple’s advice – when it originally came – came off the back of a tough few months for the tech giant.
Since the launch of the iPhone 15 a while back, there had been reported issues with overheating, and even some users experiencing screen burn-in issues.
The latest system version at the time, iOS17, has also been problematic, with some users reporting their devices rebooting themselves at night, seemingly out of the blue.
But it’s not just Apple claiming closing apps can actually be bad for your battery.
John Gruber, a gadget-focused journalist, offered further insight on the Daring Fireball blog.
“Apps in the background are effectively ‘frozen’, severely limiting what they can do in the background and freeing up the RAM they were using. iOS is really, really good at this,” Gruber explained.
“It is so good at this that unfreezing a frozen app takes up way less CPU (and energy) than relaunching an app that has been force quit.
“Not only does force quitting your apps not help, it actually hurts. Your battery life will be worse and it will take much longer to switch apps if you force quit apps in the background.”
So there you have it – don’t waste your time flicking away apps; scroll away ’til your heart’s content.
